On Monday I shared with you one of the fun games that my students and I play to practice prepositions, Mousy Prepositions (paper, digital). Of course prepositions is not an easy topic and we practice it quite a bit, so we need more than one game. Today I'd like to share with you three other activities that my students particularly enjoy when learning prepositions: Going Buggy for Prepositions, Preposition Pictionary, and Lego Preposition Build. Going Buggy for Prepositions Going Buggy for Prepositions is an activity is based off of The Insect Game, which I read about in a book that I've long forgotten the title of. To play you will need plastic toy insects, a set of noun cards, and a set of preposition cards. The free download linked above, and via the button below, will give you noun and preposition cards you can print. I recommend printing the noun and preposition cards on a different colors of paper to make separating them easier. Place students in groups of 2-4 and give each a set of supplies (at least one insect and set of cards per group, but my students always want their own insects). On their turn, each student draws a noun card and a preposition card. The student must then make his/her insect demonstrate the chosen preposition with the selected noun. If he/she is able to do so, he/she gets a point. This game is not quite as exciting as those that follow, but it does get the students up and moving, which is generally a good thing. Preposition Pictionary I wish I had some great inspiration story to share with this game but, as is often the case, it was born out of desperation. There was some kind of problem in the building, nothing serious, but all students were told to remain in their current classrooms until further notice. Since we'd already been together for over an hour that day, the students quickly began to get restless. I wanted our time together to be productive in some way, but I didn't want it to be boring. We'd been practicing prepositions, but had already played Going Buggy for Prepositions, and I was struggling to keep students engaged. One of the students started doodling on the board and another started trying to guess what she was drawing. Then it hit me, Prepositions Pictionary! I grabbed the prepositions cards from Going Buggy for Prepositions, quickly divided the students into two teams, and explained the basic rules of Pictionary to them. On a team's turn, one person would come up, draw a preposition card and, without showing it to anyone but me, illustrate the preposition on the board. Their teammates would then have to try and guess the preposition being drawn. If they were successful before time ran out (I gave them 60 seconds), they got a point. If not, the other team got one chance to guess. They LOVED it! When the announcement came dismissing them to the next class they actually groaned aloud. From then on Preposition Pictionary was the game they begged to play when we had extra time. One enterprising group even revised the rules because there was a field trip and only three people were in attendance. They decided to play as individuals. If you guessed the preposition you got two points and the right to be the next illustrator. The illustrator whose illustration lead to the correct guess received one point. Lego Preposition Build Who doesn't love Legos? I always kept some in my classroom and even my middle schoolers liked just sitting at a table (or on the floor) and building things while chatting quietly with a friend. Some might say they were wasting time, but I think it was a great brain break, and since they were usually talking in English, in an ESL classroom, it was good speaking practice. We also used the Legos in our math lessons (especially when learning fractions), but I always wanted to use them in a grammar lesson. Then one day I received an email with picture instructions for building some object out of Legos and it hit me: prepositions! That summer I looked for the best deal I could find on Legos and bought some extra (This Classic Set was the best deal I found, especially since I had the time to wait for a sale.). I also saved and printed all of the building directions I could find, which ended up being 50 in total. I have uploaded the pdfs to a Google Drive folder and the button below this post will allow you to view the folder. You will want to either download the files you want, or save a copy to your own drive, to ensure continued access. By the time school rolled around that fall, I was ready to go. The students partnered off and arranged themselves at tables around the room. I gave a bin of Legos to each set of four students and one of each pair received a set of picture instructions, which they were not to show their partner. The student with the instructions then told their partner which Legos to choose and how to arrange them to form the object in the picture. Since the picture instructions already had the process broken down into steps the student could concentrate on giving clear instructions without worrying about how the object was built. After the building phase was complete students compared the picture to the final product to see how they did. The next day (or the same day when I had a block schedule) the partners switched roles and completed the activity again, but with a new picture. The students loved it and practiced a lot more than just prepositions. The next year when some of my repeat students heard we were going to work on prepositions again they specifically asked to do this activity. Well, to quote the Looney Toons, "That's all folks!" Those are my four best non-worksheet preposition practice activities. Unfortunately I've only managed to translate Mousy Prepositions to the digital world, but I'm still thinking about the others. If I get hit with inspiration, or discover a great resource, I'll let you know. In the meantime, happy teaching!
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mean about a time best forgotten?). My mother very calmly looked at me and said, "Prepositions are easy. Just think of everything a mouse can do to a box." That, among a few other famous mnemonic devices (I'll forever remember the capitol of Nebraska because, according to my mother, "Lincoln had big knees, but he never went to Nebraska."), became my academic salvation. I did pass my test, and to this day, prepositions, mice, and boxes are forever linked in my brain.
When I became and ESL teacher and had to teach prepositions, my students were whining and struggling, my mother's mnemonic device was echoing in my ears, and I did what I always do when faced with a boring grammar concept that must be mastered: I created a game. Prepositions are visual and I wasn't satisfied with simply making a board game with cards and tokens, I needed a mouse and a box! The mouse was relatively easy to obtain, they are plentiful and cheap in the pet section of any store. The box posed a bit more of a challenge as I needed something the mouse could be in, on, go through, etc. After thinking about it for awhile, I took an old shoe box and wrapped it in black bulletin board paper, being sure to wrap the lid separately. Then I cut a hole through each side of it, making a tunnel for my mouse to pass through. A quick game board and some cute preposition cards decorated with mouse clipart, and Mousy Prepositions was born. Students could draw a card, read the preposition, use the mouse and box to demonstrate the preposition, and (if correct) roll a number cube to advance on the board. My students loved it and my only challenge was keeping my pet cats away from the toy mice. :D Now that digital learning has become a necessity, I didn't want to give up my fun game, so created a Digital Mousy Prepositions game as well. I simply turned the game board into an image file and inserted it onto a PowerPoint slide that I'd resized to 17x11 (see my earlier blog posts Alphabet Adjective Zig Zag and Too or Enough for more information on how I create my game boards). The clip art for the mice and boxes was easily obtained from Pixaby. The part that I had to think about was the prepositions. I really didn't want my students having to click from slide to slide to "draw" a card, as they do in other games that utilize the game play script my husband wrote me. I wanted them to play the entire game on the slide that held the game board. The answer ended up being a custom prepositions script, again written by my husband, combined with the dice script he'd previously written. The resulting game was something students could play on a single slide, with minimal clicks. Take a look and see for yourself: I owe a big thank you to both my seventh grade ELA teacher and my mother for inspiring these fun (and free) games. My students definitely think this is a much more enjoyable way to learn prepositions than endless pictures and worksheets with questions such as: "The ball is ____ the desk." Stay tuned later this week for two other rodent-free fun (and free) ways my students and I practice prepositions. Get both versions of the game, and the other resources mentioned in this post, by clicking the pictures and links above or the buttons below!
Sentence Scramble is unique because it has a very specific script to generate the type of sentence students must find. It's also unique because it involves a magic reveal answer slide. I described the step-by-step process of creating magic reveal answers in a previous blog post, and it was the perfect solution to my answer key problem for this game. I knew students would need an answer key, but didn't want to have to set up a hyperlink for every square on the game board. I also didn't want to have a slide that just showed students every answer from the board. The magic reveal trick was perfect because students can drag the magnifying glass to reveal only the answer they need while the others remain hidden.
The final activity pictured above, Clip 'Em Centers, is a set of self-grading task cards, not a board game. I gave the step-by-step directions for creating these cards in a previous blog post, but I'm rather enamored with them. Students type their answers into specific cells of a Google Sheet or Excel spreadsheet, those answers are automatically recorded and graded on a separate tab, and a final tab gives students their total results. While the activity doesn't involve any scripts, it does solve my problem of not knowing what my students answered when they completed digital task card activities. In short, the past couple days has been a kind of culmination of all my learning over the last few months. I'm excited that I'll be able to use so many of my favorite paper games and activities this semester during distance learning. I hope you find them helpful as well!
Cool, right? And they were extremely easy to make. This is possible in both Excel and Sheets, but I find it a little easier to complete in Sheets because there are fewer options. The good news is that Sheets can be downloaded as Excel (click File, Download, Microsoft Excel) and all of the formatting stays in place. These directions will be for Sheets. The first thing I did was rename the first tab as "Directions." To rename a tab:
After the directions are finished it's time to add the question, answer, and grade tabs. I recommend that you add the answer tab first and you update it as you go. To add a tab click the + sign in the bottom left corner. Change the name to "Answers" using the above steps. I chose to label column A as "Question," so I could easily see which question the answer corresponded to, and I went ahead and numbered down column A (type 1 into cell A2, grab the bottom right corner of the blue outline around the cell and pull down, the numbering will be done automatically). Column B I labeled "Answer." Going back to my directions tab, I again clicked the + button and renamed this newest tab "1" for question one. On the question tabs you are going to include whatever you would normally place on a task card. I chose to include a picture (click Insert, Image, Over Cells) and the sentence that I wanted them to complete. One thing you do need to be sure and include though is an easily identifiable place for them to type their answer. You need to know exactly where the answer will be typed in order for the conditional formatting to work. I took care of this problem by choosing a cell, resizing it (not necessary but I wanted it to be large and not easily missed), and coloring it tan. Now that your first task card is set up, it's time to make the magic happen on the answer sheet.
To create the next task card you could start from scratch, but I recommend copying and pasting to save yourself a little setup work.
Only a few things remain to be done. The first step is to finish the auto-grading feature.
This next part is totally optional but I wanted it because I sometimes use task cards as an assessment. The Answers tab will now clearly show which questions are correct and which are incorrect. This is great if I want students to be able to go back and correct their work, but what if I don't want to make it obvious which questions are right or wrong, and I still want them to know their final score? My solution was a grade tab. From the Answers tab create a new tab by clicking the + sign in the bottom left corner. Rename the new tab "Grade." I then inserted a picture (just for fun) and an encouraging message. I then chose a cell and typed "Number Correct" (cell H4 in my example). In the next cell over (cell I4 on my sheet) I told it to automatically populate from the Answers sheet.
The final step is to hide the Answers tab so they don't have access to which specific questions are correct or incorrect (this step is optional but good if you want to use the cards as an assessment). To hide a tab:
That's it, you now have a complete set of self-grading digital task cards. To use them you will need to make a copy of the document for each student and give them editing rights (be sure you've deleted any answers you typed on the question tabs as you tested things out). The best way of doing this will depend on your learning management system. To do this on Blackboard I create a Force a Copy link and post the link in my assignment. In Google Classroom you can just put the link into classroom and choose "make a copy for each student." The important thing is that each student have his or her own copy of the cards. This truly is my new favorite way to do task cards. I like it so much that I'm planning to go back and recreate some of my other task cards (the ones where students move circles to indicate their choice and I have to check each slide individually) using this method. I hope you find it helpful as well, happy teaching!
The first part of the process was very similar to other board games I've made. I started by designing the various slides in PowerPoint. In order to make everything fit I like to resize my slides to 17x11 (in PowerPoint click on Design, Slide Size, Custom Slide Size, enter your desired dimensions and cick OK, choose Ensure Fit). This allows me to simply take my already-designed paper game board, save it as an image, and insert it on half the slide. The second half of the slide is where I type instructions for how to play the game. After setting up the game board slide, I then set up a slide for every question. Each question slide includes the sentence prompt and a box called "Game Board." Once all of my slides were designed, I saved them all as images (Save As, choose .jpg or .png, Save, All Slides). In order to have my magic reveal answer I needed to create and save three more images: "too," "enough," and a magnifying glass. For the two text answers (too/enough), I created a text box in PowerPoint, typed the word too, changed the color of the text to be the same as my background, right clicked on it, chose "Save as Image," and saved it. I then repeated the process for enough. The magnifying glass was slightly harder because I am not an artist. I do, however, know of a great source for royalty-free images and clipart, Pixaby. I simply went there, searched for magnifying glass, chose one with a clear background, and saved it to my computer. I was now ready to start setting up my game in Google Slides. First, I needed to upload the game board and sentence slides I designed in PowerPoint and set them as the backgrounds of individual slides. Designing in PowerPoint, saving as images, and setting those images as backgrounds prevents students from accidentally (or accidentally-on-purpose) moving, changing, or deleting things you don't want them to. This process of uploading and setting all these images as backgrounds used to be very tedious and time consuming. Then I was introduced to the add-on Slides Toolbox. This add-on allows me to import images and set them as backgrounds on separate slides in about seven or eight clicks, rather than the seven or eight clicks per slide it used to take. After getting all of my backgrounds in place, I needed to make my Game Board button functional. In order to do this, I drew a rectangle over the button on the first question slide, made the rectangle and border clear, and then hyperlinked it (use the link button in the toolbar) to the slide with my game board. I then copied the box and pasted it onto each question slide. The nice thing about this copy and paste method is that the hyperlink is also copied and pasted and Slides automatically pastes it in the same location on ever slide. So I literally copied it, clicked on the next slide, hit ctrl+v, and clicked the next slide to repeat the process. The entire operation only took me about 30 seconds. It was now time for the part I'd been waiting for: creating the magic reveal. Starting with the first question slide, I inserted the image for the correct answer (too or enough). I then positioned the image over the black line, making sure no part of it covered anything black. Because the word is typed in the same color as the background it became invisible. I then inserted the magnifying glass image that I'd previously saved and set it to go to the back (right click on it, choose "send to back," or click on it and click alt+shift+b). By sending the magnifying glass to the back I told the program that any time it's sharing space with another object on the screen the other object should be on top. In other words, when I drag the magnifying glass over the answer line, the word on the line is put on top, the magnifying glass is put on the bottom, and the word becomes visible because something that is a different color is between it and the background. Very cool! I then went to each question slide and repeated the steps:
The last big task I had to complete was adding the game play script that my husband wrote for me. This script adds a menu item to the top that says "Game Play." Under that menu are additional menus that say "Draw Card" and "Roll Dice." The "Draw Card" menu will randomly jump a player to one of the question cards (similar to drawing a card from the top of a pile). The "Roll Dice" menu will produce a pop up window that says, "You rolled a __," and give a randomly generated number between one and six. This script (as well as others) is available in my store and includes a video giving step-by-step instructions on how to install and use it. All that was left to do now was create the pieces for my students to move. On the game board slide I made a circle, copied it, pasted it three times, recolored them to be four different colors, arranged them where I wanted them, and I was finished. Just a couple of quick tips/reminders for using them in your classroom:
Digital board games take a little bit of work to create (though it is getting easier as I go and learn new tricks, such as Slides Toolbox) and set up, but I really think it's worth it. My students always respond so positively to games and I was very frustrated last semester when I couldn't use them. Now that I have learned how to do all of these cool things I can't wait for on-line instruction this fall!
The paper version of the game requires a letter die as well as a number die. I know from experience how easily students get distracted and confused when they have to utilize multiple sites and/or tabs, so I wanted them to be able to "roll" the dice without ever leaving the Google Slide deck the game was built in. Fortunately I am married to a full stack software architect and he came to my rescue. My wonderful husband programmed an extra menu item into Google Slides that includes both an alphabet and a numerical die that students can "roll" by simply clicking. The script I used in this game is available in my TpT store (along with others), simply use the buttons below to purchase your own copy. Each has a how-to-install video linked in the description of the product. OK, back to the game...
When I make games in Google Slides I always design the non-moving parts in PowerPoint, save them as an image, and upload them as backgrounds. As I've shared in the past, this prevents students from accidentally (or not-so-accidentally) deleting or changing the directions, questions, or other content. This game was no exception, and I started by recoloring my paper-based game board and saving it as an image. I then opened PowerPoint, resized my slide to be 17x11 (allowing me space to put the game board and directions on the same slide), and inserted the image. Next to the game board I added the directions so students will be able to refer to them as needed. After saving everything as images (click on "save as" and change the file type to .jpg or .png), I opened a new Google Slides file, changed the slide size (File, Page Setup), and inserted my saved images as the background on each slide. The object of the game is to be the first player to reach finish. In order to advance, students must first obtain a letter (by rolling the alphabet die), naming a noun that starts with the given letter, an adjective to describe the noun, and use both the adjective & noun in a sentence. If the sentence is grammatically correct, the student then rolls the numerical die and moves his/her piece. An extra space can be earned (turning a roll of 4 into 5) by using alliteration (ie: The dangerous dog was contained behind a fence.). Here's a short video showing how to play the digital version: Two important things to remember when using the digital version of this game: the slide deck must remain in editing mode and you must make a copy (with editing rights) for each group. Students will not be able to access the extra menu where the dice are, or move their playing pieces, if the game is placed into present mode. Each group will need its own copy of the game (they'll share the file and manipulate it from their different locations), with editing rights, in order to play as well. The game play (dice) menu will automatically load in each copy, you will not need to do anything special, though students may have to wait an extra 10-15 seconds for the menu to fully load before beginning. That seems like such a short time to wait, but I'm always amazed at how little patience students have when waiting for things to load, so be prepared to remind them. My students have always loved the paper version of this game and I can't wait to play the digital one with them. One last tip: at times I've wanted to have a record of how my students used adjectives, so I instructed them to write down the sentences they used on a piece of paper. If needed you can obtain this same type of record with the digital version. Simply have the student right click on the space where his/her piece is sitting, choose "comment," type out the sentence, and click "Comment." This will allow you to see who said what at a later date. Happy gaming, everyone!
The digital version of Participle Adjective Cover Up is slightly different. For this version I inserted a custom script in order to create an additional menu item called "Ending." Students click "Ending," and then "Generate Ending," and a box pops up that says "You rolled -ed," or "You rolled -ing." Students then search the board for a sentence that requires the specified ending to complete it. The student reads the sentence aloud, correctly filling in the blank, and then is able to drag one of his/her X's over the spot to claim it. Here's a short video showing the game in action:
The digital version is played in a similar fashion, but it has a specially coded "Dice" menu added to it. The first student clicks on "Dice" and "Roll Dice," and a window pops up showing a number between 1 and 12. Play then proceeds as described above, with the student checking his/her board to see if the square is available or not and forming a sentence when it is. Covers are the grey X's in the center of the board, which can be dragged and dropped where needed.
Both digital games have been designed and uploaded so the only things that can be moved or edited on the slides are the covers. The words and pictures are all part of the background and cannot be accidentally (or accidentally-on-purpose) deleted or changed. Here's a short video showing the digital version of Present Perfect Cover Up in action: Cover up really is one of the most popular games in my classroom. The use of milk jug lids for covers makes it cheap to make and helps it stand out from other games. The students especially enjoy the element of chance added by the fact they can't control the dice roll and so the first person to take a turn isn't automatically the winner. All of the versions of the games (paper and digital for distance learning) are available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, just click the photos above or buttons below. Also available are bundles of the paper and digital games at a 25% discount, and a script you can add to Google Slides or Docs to create your own game using a D6 number cube.
1. Create your picture in Google Sheets (or Excel if you prefer). Get it exactly how you want it to look once the students have correctly completed the activity.
2. Go over several rows from your picture and start typing your questions. In this case I had sentences that I wanted students to complete, but it could be anything from a math problem to a factual questions. You just need to have a defined answer that everyone will type the same. Place one question per row. 3. In front of your questions color the box where you want students to type their answer. Students must type the correct answer, in the correct box, for the picture to "magically" appear. 4. Now you're ready to start conditionally formatting your picture. Go over to the picture and randomly select however many cells you want to tie to the first answer. Be sure all of the cells are the same color! 5. In order to help myself remember which cells I'd already done I first changed the selected cells to white. 6. Click on Format, Conditional Formatting. 7. Click "Add Another Rule" 8. In the Format rules box click the down triangle and choose "Custom formula is." 9. In the box enter the formula: =$Y$3="Who's" The Y is the letter of the column where the answer will be typed. The 3 is the number of the row where the answer will be typed. Inside the quotation marks is the text for the correct answer. If your answer is numerical it does not require quotation marks. 10. Choose the color you want the cells to turn. 11. Click done. 12. Repeat steps 4-11 for each of the questions you've created, being sure to conditionally format all of the cells in your picture. You can test your work by going through and typing the answers in the boxes and watching the picture appear. When incorrect answers or typed, or correct answers are typed incorrectly, nothing will happen and the boxes will stay white (or whatever color you set them to be).
The first time I created a mystery picture I fell into the trap of recreating digitally what I had on paper. I made every cell correspond to an answer (80 questions for an 80 cell picture) and every answer correspond to a color (all of the "am" answers were blue). The great thing about digital is that you are freed from these restrictions. You can make every answer correspond to as many or as few cells as you choose (just remember they all have to be the same color). You can also make any answer be any color, even if it wasn't that color previously (hence my activity has two possible answers but three different colors). The digital format opens up a lot of possibilities!
My students already enjoy mystery color pictures and I can't wait to see their response to the digital version! Want my mystery picture activities? Use the buttons below! Want a free digital color activity? Sign up for my e-mail list on the right and you'll get a force a copy link for my present tense to be mystery picture!
I would love to create a similar resource for each of the classes in our program. My plan is to create a There's a Video About That and Review Menu for each course I teach in a semester. Hopefully the process won't be too overwhelming that way and I can eventually have a complete library for my students.
Want the resources for yourself? They're free! Just click one of the links above or use the buttons below. |
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